Microsoft acquires AI assistant start-up Genee

(Photo: PETER STEFFEN, EPA) SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft has made yet another acquisition designed to retool the former software king into an enterprise solutions leader. The Redmond, Wash-based company announced Monday that it was buying virtual-assistant start-up Genee for an undisclosed sum, according to blog posts by Microsoft and Genee executives. The move comes on the heels of Microsoft’s $26 billion purchase of professional networking site LinkedIn, a bold chess move by CEO Satya Nadella as he aims to make his company’s cloud-based Office 365 platform ubiquitous in the business environment. Genee makes software that uses artificial intelligence to schedule appointments. Emailing a contact and copying Genee causes the software to interpret the sender’s meeting request, search through the sender’s calendar and suggest a few meeting times to the recipient.…